Fall River veteran recalls day he almost went down with the ship

Editor's note: Fall River is preparing to celebrate Navy Day on Saturday. For more information about the festivities and events, click here. When they pulled James McIntyre from the cold, cold waters of the north Atlantic, he ...

Editor's note: Fall River is preparing to celebrate Navy Day on Saturday. For more information about the festivities and events, click here.

When they pulled James McIntyre from the cold, cold waters of the north Atlantic, he was covered in a thick sheen of black fuel oil, like the birds you see in commercials for environmental responsibility.

A 21-year-old sailor from Division Street in Fall River, McIntyre was aboard the USS Hobson, asleep on the night of April 26, 1952.

“The Hobson was a destroyer-minesweeper,” McIntyre said. “It was an old World War II destroyer converted to a minesweeper.

“I was asleep in my rack,” McIntyre said.

The ship was 600 miles off the Azores Islands, heading for the Mediterranean.

Nearby was the aircraft carrier Wasp, a huge ship, a floating city, really.

And the Wasp struck the Hobson amidships. The skipper of the Hobson had attempted to cut across the path of the Wasp.

“Our skipper misjudged the distance,” McIntyre said.

He isn’t really sure what woke him up, if it was the shock or the noise but when he awoke, water and oil from the Hobson’s fuel tanks were flooding into the cabin. The shock of the collision threw him out of the bunk, which sailors call a “rack.”

McIntyre was lucky. His bunk was inches away from a ladder leading to the deck. Up he went.

He didn’t have to jump overboard.

“The ship sank under me,” he said. “It broke in half.”

He was in the water, a little before 11 p.m., his own ship gone. The Wasp had searchlights trained on the sea and boats out.